In a recent episode of The Positive Polarity, I had the pleasure of meeting with the host Dave Molenda who is also a #1 Amazon Best Selling Author and Speaker. It’s here that I shared key strategies on how you can utilize shared language, positive conflict, and connection to weather any business storm ahead.
Fear can drive you to do disastrous things you’ll later regret. When we’re confronted with a challenge, our brain’s fight or flight response kicks in – our fear instinct.
We react irrationally without thinking through the full range of possibilities and consequences. On the open water, fear-based thinking is dangerous because it leads to fear-driven action. Fear that’s not addressed when the seas are calm inevitably leads to trouble when disaster strikes.
That’s why every experienced captain understands the importance of leading from faith over fear on his sailboat. Just like sailing captains, your steward leadership charts the course for either fear- or faith-based decisions at your organization. Today’s uncertain and treacherous waters leave no room for fear. One poor decision made from a point of fear can lead your company down a dark path from which there’s no return.
Unsurprisingly, today’s remote workers report heightened fear and other negative emotions: 54% feel worried, 46% report anxiety, and 62% say they’re stressed.
As leaders, we must prioritize faith in ourselves first so we can lead from faith in good times and bad.
As a leader, your job isn’t to bark orders, point out faults, and punish workers when they fall out of line or don’t meet expectations. The best leaders know that they must fill a role as caretakers of the soul for everyone across their team.
Your team already faces enough fear around every turn:
They don’t need more fear-based leadership radiating from your presence every time you walk by.
Instead, it’s your job as a leader to exude faith to and for your team. Faith that:
This faith over fear mindset allows you to become a steward leader who protects his team and creates a safe place for them to thrive. Steward leaders are caretakers: They ease fears, supply tools, and offer support so the entire team can function at optimal capacity.
It only takes one cataclysmic event for teams running on fear-based leadership to fall apart when it matters most.
Things like performance evaluations and meeting callouts do nothing but instill fear across every member of your organization.
When performance is judged by shortcomings, employees grow reluctant to speak up when there’s a problem they might get blamed for. Issues go unaddressed until they evolve into unavoidable roadblocks.
People point fingers to assign blame instead of finding the root cause of problems and working together to fix them.
Fear-based leadership leaves you in a constant state of reactivity.
Since you’re chronically focused on your team’s weaknesses and shortcomings, you end up stuck ten minutes in the past backtracking, fixing yesterday’s problems, and dishing out punishments.
Again, this reactionary thinking causes us to ignore a problem’s root causes. Instead of fixing our boat’s structural problems, we patch the holes and hope they don’t leak again – but they always will.
A fearful team operates from a defensive, and often hostile, disposition.
Your employees and colleagues show up to work every day worried about potential mistakes they’ve made that will be uncovered today and how leadership will react.
Everyone responds to criticism and complaints – even genuine ones – from a defensive state, seeking to avoid the full range of blame and its consequences. This leaves your team wholly distrustful of each other.
When a leader prioritizes faith over fear, their team trusts them – and each other. Your team will know you have their back and you’re invested in their best interest.
Faith-based leaders operate under the assumption that people are generally well-meaning and want to do their best.
Instead of punishing weaknesses, you uplift people based on their unique strengths. You celebrate their individuality instead of forcing them to fit into boxes.
Rather than operating in fear, employees become excited to share their accomplishments and take on the next challenge as a team.
This could translate into removing traditional performance evaluations, reassigning responsibilities for employees, and just adapting a supportive mindset overall.
It’s always easier to prevent problems from happening instead of cleaning up after them.
As every sailor knows, regular boat maintenance and cleaning are key to keep your vessel in top shape. Otherwise, something could go drastically wrong at the worst possible time.
When you run on faith over fear, you lead proactively. You look for conditions that might create rocky water ahead and chart a new course.
Proactively preventing problems means no one is ever assigned blame, punished, or fearful.
Fearful employees don’t speak up when something might go wrong. They’ve learned to keep their heads down and avoid making waves.
Steward leaders foster an environment where their teams trust each other.
With widespread trust, people feel comfortable voicing concerns, problems, and mistakes because they know they won’t be punished. They also know that the issue will be addressed appropriately without anyone losing their job or being put in the corner.
People need faith in both leadership and those around them before trust can build.
By definition, steward leadership makes you the caretaker of your team. Instead of promoting fears and exploiting weaknesses, it’s your job to lift up each individual worker’s strengths and create a trusting environment.
Effective steward leadership doesn’t happen overnight. People won’t suddenly trust you just because you’ve said something nice. It takes real actions, consistency, and time. Once your team realizes that you’re prioritizing faith over fear, they can learn to trust you. Next, they’ll start building trust and openness with each other.
That’s the goal and it’s the key to long-term success via steward leadership: the only caring way to lead and the only successful style for managing today’s uncertainty.
Are you ready to chart the course towards faith over fear steward leadership? Space is still available for our exclusive spring leadership workshop in the Florida Keys aboard General Patton’s historic yacht. Claim your spot now!
A few weeks ago, I was enjoying a weekend sail on Lake Michigan.
Waves of about seven feet tall crashed against the boat while the winds blew furiously and pulled us around.
I enjoy these rare conditions. While treacherous, I’m an experienced sailing instructor and licensed Coast Guard Captain who loves a fresh challenge.
My crew didn’t feel the same way – and I could tell.
Although I considered it an exhilarating experience, my crew felt unprepared, inexperienced, and concerned.
Instead of ignoring the crew’s fears and telling them to suck it up, I decided it was time to head back to harbor.
We had only been on the water for about two hours but as the captain, it was my job to mitigate the crew’s fears and ensure they feel safe.
A crew that feels unsafe and fearful puts everyone on board at risk.
That’s the true job of every leader – whether on a ship or at a Fortune 500 organization.
Leadership development must prioritize stewardship. A steward leader knows it’s his job to create a psychologically safe environment for everyone on the team. Only then is the team prepared to weather the rocky waters and come out the other side stronger than ever before.
Today’s leaders rarely consider themselves responsible for the mental and emotional well-being of everyone on their team.
Instead, most leaders create an environment that encourages fear to grow: they highlight worker shortcomings, ignore valuable contributions, and pit team members against each other.
Many times, this fear-based leadership development isn’t even intentional. For some of us, it’s all we know.
Unfortunately, this sets an organization up to fail.
Workers grow distrusting of each other and leadership. Engagement and productivity drop. No one feels valued so no one is invested in the organization’s well-being.
It’s no surprise that employee engagement reached historically low levels recently: 54% of workers are actively disengaged. More than half of workers have no psychological connection to their company, passion, or energy.
A steward leader plays a caretaker role – both for the team and the organization. Steward leaders know that people function best when they feel respected, valued, and appreciated.
Steward leadership teaches us to prioritize the well-being of everyone on the team because they’ll feel empowered to care for the company.
Instead of looking at work as a means to an end, teams with steward leaders share celebrations over the company’s success and communicate to fix shortcomings.
Steward leadership development creates a healthy environment for everyone to thrive.
Fear is everywhere today. I’ve seen rampant fear destroy many companies even in the best economic times.
Every ship needs a fearless captain to care for the crew’s well-being so they can do their job without fear. With a steward leader at the helm, everyone aboard the vessel feels safe and prepared to work together in perfect harmony for the good of the team.
A steward mentality changes how we define success and approach achieving it.
Stewards know a hungry, tired, and irritated crew can’t work together efficiently. If morale is low enough, they might not even get the boat to shore safely when the waters turn rocky.
Leaders with a steward mentality know that the success of their organization relies on the well-being of their team.
Of course, leaders must first ensure their workers’ basic needs are met (within reason): shelter, food, childcare, healthcare, etc. However, steward leaders must also prioritize their team’s emotional and mental well-being as well.
Autonomy, trust, appreciation, psychological safety – these all matter tremendously.
When leaders prioritize their team’s well-being from a holistic approach like this, workers can truly flourish because they feel valued. They feel invested in the organization’s outcome because the organization is invested in their well-being too.
Stewards know the safety of their crew must come first.
Steward leadership isn’t a positivity cult where we ignore flaws and force everyone to wear a happy face.
That mentality is dangerous because it means problems are bubbling below the water waiting for a chance to surface and cause widespread damage to the ship.
Steward leaders uphold core principles like honesty, open communication, and respect. All these principles are critical to building strength across the team because they make workers feel psychologically safe.
When a crew member knows he won’t be ridiculed or shouted at for addressing an issue with the boat, he’s more likely to speak up or take charge himself. If, on the other hand, he’s afraid of how his captain and crew will react, he might ignore the problem and hope no one notices – a dangerous situation.
An organization with honest communication and trust is a strong team.
When people know their voice will be respected, they’ll speak up out of respect for the organization’s best interests. Sometimes it’s easy, other times painful – but it’s always necessary for success.
Today, most corporate leaders suffer from a serious lack of object permanence.
Our innate sense of object permanence tells us that problems and conditions exist even when we can’t see or experience them at that very moment. Most leaders today, however, prefer to brush off or outright ignore problems that aren’t directly in front of their face.
In a way, this is a coping tool. If we acted on every problem no matter how small, we’d lose sight of our long-term goals and purpose.
However, this mentality also keeps leaders detached from their impact on society as a whole.
Let’s say an employee had an awful day at work at a job where they already don’t feel appreciated. Maybe they experienced a degrading performance review where someone pointed out all their flaws and ignored all the positive work they’ve achieved over the year.
Feeling down, this worker goes home and starts an argument with his wife. His wife feels upset the following day and can’t focus on her job properly.
As caretakers, stewards uplift people’s strengths instead of pointing out their weaknesses unless they become a severe problem. Society needs more of this mentality in general.
Every leader must ask themselves: Am I improving society through my leadership and guidance or am I creating more hurdles to overcome?
I’ve learned that while aboard a ship navigating the rocky waters, there’s no time for miscommunication, dishonesty, and fear. Lives would be put at risk.
I believe companies and organizations today face the same reality. Leadership development must cast stewardship in the starring role. Steward leadership is the only way to tackle today’s unparalleled challenges and not just overcome them but also grow from them together as a team.
My background in the corporate world and as a licensed Coast Guard Captain lead me to develop hands-on workshops that target the root causes of low engagement and morale. Chart the course for sustainable growth with Full Sail Leadership.
Today, the term “steward” refers to someone called to look after the passengers aboard a ship – a caretaker.
I’ve found that steward leadership results in engaged teams who are invested in the organization’s mission, vision, and values.
Unfortunately, this is a challenging concept to grasp. Leaders tend to assume a controlling role over their employees – as if workers are a form of capital to be shaped as the company desires.
“I pay these people a good wage, what else could they want from me?”
You can’t just throw money at disengaged teams and expect them to suddenly become productive. Studies show that 60% of workers will consider leaving a position if they feel their work isn’t captivating enough.
Steward leaders, on the other hand, invest in both the financial and emotional wellbeing of their employees.
Stewards care about the lives and hearts of their crew outside the office walls.
When workers feel valued and respected instead of alienated and reduced to a financial figure, an amazing synergy happens: those team members become the stewards of the organization’s mission, values, and vision.
In 2013, Julia Kukard, Kurt April, and Kai Peters published an important book called Steward Leadership: A Maturational Perspective under UCT Press.
According to the authors, steward leadership is “a form of leadership that focuses on others, the community and society at large rather than the self.” They explain that a lot of senior leaders tend to adopt a steward leadership outlook naturally as their careers mature.
Mature and experienced business leaders know you can’t force productivity out of people. They know a team needs to feel respect, compassion, and inclusion before they’ll engage wholeheartedly.
Under servant leadership, the leader exists to serve the team members. With traditional leadership, it’s the other way around: the team serves the leader.
Steward leadership is different: a steward leader cares for the team members, the organization, and society as a whole. Their actions are done in the interest of growth for the organization’s mission, vision, and values.
Living through example, steward leaders attract talent who hold the same values.
Community building, responsibility, and trust within an organization all hinge on these nine components:
Steward leadership, as an attitude, starts with a person who embodies these characteristics.
When you’re out on the water, and things get rocky, what happens? You band together with fellow crew members around a shared vision: getting to shore safely. That shared vision leads to self-governance, which keeps the individual and organization on course.
A steward leader should inspire trust in team members. No one can put themselves into a vulnerable position without complete trust. People must have faith before they speak up, brainstorm, and offer constructive criticism openly.
Widespread trust empowers team members to adapt their operations and promote the organization’s growth.
Steward leadership can’t manifest without maturity.
It takes maturity and vulnerability to build healthy inter-dependent relationships, rather than toxic codependent ones.
A mature and emotionally intelligent leader realizes they are only as successful as the team they’ve assembled. No single person has the answers 100% of the time.
Emotional intelligence and maturity allow a leader to step back and invest in the people around them, when necessary.
In our blog, you can find countless case studies of companies across the country that have accomplished amazing things through stewardship leadership development. Repeatedly, a caretaker mindset delivers incredible results.
I’ve seen companies on the brink of collapse pull through – and thrive – after transforming their attitude in favor of steward leadership.
Steward leadership begins in the heart. Have you ever seen someone forced into therapy by a spouse or family member? Nothing changes if they don’t have a genuine desire and commitment to change themselves.
To become a steward leader, a person must commit to empathy and encouragement across the team.
John F. Kennedy once said, “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.”
A steward leader asks what they can do for their company – especially in times of crisis.
Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, we’ve seen companies do extraordinary things to assist their workers:
You can bet the companies who adapted steward leadership principles like these will come out of this crisis in much better positions than others.
Here are a few examples of ways companies have risen to the challenge of stewardship during today’s trying times.
Goodway Group hosted a half-hour “Family Fun Friday” so workers could introduce their kids. Jillian Gap, Goodway Group’s People Experience Director, said it included “music, magic, and laughs.”
Everyone could use a lighthearted break, especially taxed working parents.
Other companies like F&B NY, The Media Kitchen, and PubMatic also tried to lighten the mood by encouraging teams to bring kids, pets, or a glass of wine to lunches or meetings.
Salesforce took major strides towards worker wellness by launching a series of programs and initiatives. The Thriving Mind benefits program provides mental and emotional health resources for employees and their families.
Meanwhile, the B-Well Together twice-daily broadcast connects industry luminaries with their employees to discuss wellbeing.
Salesforce also made Plum Village’s Zen Meditation App available to all its workers through the Salesforce App Catalog.
People can’t concentrate on work when their basic needs aren’t met. During COVID-19, Salesforce and many other enterprises launched employee assistance programs to help lift workers out of survival mode.
It’s never been more obvious that every team member faces a different reality and struggle. Steward leaders know not every worker needs the same help. That’s why you see companies like Salesforce jump into prioritizing conversations and connections.
Treating workers right doesn’t only benefit the company – it improves society profoundly.
Bob Chapman, the CEO and Chairman of Barry-Wehmiller, views his team members as “someone’s son or daughter, mom or dad, brother or sister.”
He points out that his attitude and treatment create a ripple effect: how we treat our team members impacts how they treat their family at home and everyone in their lives.
Think of it this way: how many times have you seen someone lash out and said to yourself, “wow, I wonder what they went through today?”
Taking a few moments to treat workers with dignity, respect, and care can lead to healthier families, quality marriages, and a more wholesome society.
A steward leadership mindset creates team members who share a genuine investment in the company’s vision, values, and mission. When team members care about all business aspects, engagement improves, and productivity soars.
Learn how to become the steward of your team with Full Sail Leadership’s COVID-compliant workshops.